Why the Hollywood mogul grounded a movie starlet

It is a relationship usually shrouded in secrecy. On the one side, the young star - sassy, sexy, fast-living and, frankly, a bit of a handful. On the other, the Hollywood mogul, the man with the money - indulgent, knowing, but never willing to upset the talent.

That all changed this weekend. To the sound of gasps along Sunset Boulevard, a 70-year-old film executive has decided to give actress Lindsay Lohan what has become a very public dressing-down.

Like any other self-respecting hard-living star, Lohan has until now relied on a coded bank of excuses for those mornings when she can't haul herself out of bed. Since she plays a rebellious, uncontrollable teenager in her latest movie, she could have cited method acting. But instead, last Wednesday, the 20-year-old's publicist blamed her latest unexpected absence from the set on 'heat exhaustion'.

'Lohan had been filming Georgia Rule in 105F weather for 12 hours that day,' her spokeswoman, Leslie Sloan Zelnick, told the entertainment show The Insider. The actress had to be taken to hospital where, according to Zelnick, she was treated for heatstroke and dehydration before being released.

But sometimes even Hollywood actors fail to deceive. The production company's chief executive, James G Robinson, bluntly told Lohan he saw through her publicist's excuses and that he knew she had actually been up all night partying.

Telling the actress she had 'acted like a spoiled child', Robinson, the chief of Morgan Creek Productions, wrote her a stiff letter blaming her for hampering the production of the film, which also stars Jane Fonda and Felicity Huffman. The letter was leaked to the whistleblowing website Smoking Gun.

Robinson said he saw through Lohan's alibis and would no longer tolerate her protestations of illness and fatigue. He went on to describe the former Disney sweetheart's behaviour as 'discourteous, irresponsible and unprofessional'.

The letter, which was dated Wednesday, addressed directly to Lohan and circulated to agents, producers and others involved in the film, continued: 'Your representatives have told us that your late arrivals and absences from the set have been the result of illness; today we were told it was "heat exhaustion". We are well aware that your ongoing all-night heavy partying is the real reason for your so-called "exhaustion".' The letter has been authenticated by a spokesman for Morgan Creek.

In Georgia Rule, Lohan plays a troubled teenager who is dragged by her mother (played by Huffman) to spend a summer with her grandmother (Fonda). Robinson alluded to the possibility that neither of those established stars were impressed by her behaviour when he told Lohan she had 'alienated many of your co-workers and endangered the quality of this picture'. Such public criticism would have been unthinkable in the pre-internet golden age of Hollywood, when the all-powerful studios attempted to hush up the troubles of stars such as Marilyn Monroe, one of Lohan's idols. Louis B Mayer, the head of MGM, allegedly used drugs to bring an exhausted Judy Garland up or down as required for filming while maintaining a facade of respectability.

Robinson is known for his strong personality - 'as subtle as an anvil', one admirer told the LA Times on Friday. Some Hollywood insiders are wondering if the directness of the letter may in fact signal his intention to take legal action against the star.

Lohan, who appears on the cover of this month's UK edition of GQ, tells the magazine that celebrity cat-fights, stalkers, family traumas and hospital visits have forced her into a maturity far beyond her years. When she was three she acted in her first commercial, by 10 she was performing in a TV soap and at 15 she was a movie star in Freaky Friday. By the time of Mean Girls in 2004 she was a box office phenomenon.

Her real fame, however, derives from the tabloid and celebrity blog coverage of her life. She is a member of the party circuit that includes Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson and has been linked to countless leading men. In 2005 she was hospitalised for exhaustion and lost a noticeable amount of weight. 'I've lived, like, 15 lives by now,' she told GQ. 'I've had to grow up pretty fast.'

Not fast enough, however, for one Hollywood big shot.

Hollywood bad girls

Who? Drew Barrymore

Off-screen? Reportedly had her first drink at nine, first joint at 12 and was in rehab at 15. Posed nude for Playboy and flashed her breasts on the David Letterman's Late Show

On-screen? Early Nineties films such as Poison Ivy (1992) and Guncrazy (1991) added to her licentious image.

Who? Heather Graham

Off-screen? Has talked about her rebellion against a strict Catholic upbringing. Famously enjoyed an erotic kiss with Barrymore in Los Angeles club AD.

On-screen? Shattered her parents' wishes that she not appear in any film featuring sex or nudity by appearing in a string of raunchy roles: Rollergirl in Boogie Nights (1991) and Felicity Shagwell in Austin Powers 2 (1999).

Who? Winona Ryder

Off-screen? Moved with her family to a commune in the northern Californian town of Elk when she was seven. In 2001 was arrested for shoplifting thousands of dollars' worth of designer clothes and accessories at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills.

On-screen? Well known for her work in Heathers (1989), and other films such as Beetlejuice (1988) and Little Women (1994).Rowan Walker